Competition law review – Do You SEE What I SEE?

In the long term, South-Eastern Europe probably presents the greatest scope for new competition law sections for Chambers and Partners to explore as we do not currently have rankings in several countries in the region. 

Our competition law rankings currently cover Bulgaria, Greece, Romania, Serbia and Turkey, with a subtable dedicated to competition law as part of our corporate ranking in Croatia.  We do not currently cover competition law in other countries in the region, though in Albania, Montenegro and North Macedonia the authorities do seem to be increasingly active in merger clearance work as they investigate transactions that do not have to have a direct connection to the jurisdiction. 

By contrast the authority in Bosnia will usually only investigate transactions where one of the parties is based in Bosnia, meaning there is much less merger clearance work there.  Behavioural work seems far less common – and this lack of full depth is a key reason why Chambers and Partners does not yet cover the market in these jurisdictions – though recent investigations into the tourism and tobacco industries in Montenegro and a price-fixing investigation into driving schools in Albania may point towards growth in the area and so we will be keeping an eye on these jurisdictions to see if we can start to recognise any specialists there.

In terms of the jurisdictions in the region that we do cover in more depth, there are a number of reasons to be excited about research in 2024.  Both Bulgaria and Croatia have seen personnel changes within their authority, so it will be interesting to see if there are any changes in approach because of that.  This is particularly true in Croatia, where some lawyers were suggesting it could lead to an increase in fines for anti-competitive behaviour in a country where fines have typically been at a low level.

While the focus in Bulgaria and Croatia is on individual changes, in Romania and Turkey lawyers were highlighting legislative changes as an area that may have an impact in 2024.  Controversially, the latest legislation in Romania appears to have the effect of reducing lawyer-client privilege in dawn raids, which was an unpopular move with many lawyers.  In December 2023, Turkey introduced new rules around leniency applications, that will allow companies involved in hub-and-spoke cartels and information exchange investigations to benefit from leniency applications – though a new time limit during which companies need to apply for leniency has also come into effect. 

These jurisdictions are of course also impacted by the wider trends across the continent.  The DMA and the focus on the technology sector is particularly apparent in Turkey, where Google and Amazon have both been the subject of recent investigations.  Turkey also has a lower threshold for merger clearance notifications in the technology sector than in other industries, and is currently investigating Elon Musk for gun-jumping in his acquisition of Twitter.  The European Recovery and Resilience Fund is keeping state aid lawyers in Greece busy, while foreign direct investment was a key talking point in Romania.  In both Romania and Bulgaria investigations into price increases in the food and energy sectors have been taking place, which is a further example of trends across the continent.  The final example of this is the Turkish authority’s focus on no-poach agreements, a trend that seems to be spreading into Europe from the United States.

There are minor differences to be seen in terms of the specific focus of the authorities in each jurisdiction.  Merger clearance work remains at a high level in Serbia, as the authority investigates concentrations based on the companies’ turnover - regardless of their activity in Serbia.  However, this volume of work does not always equate to complex mandates, with only one phase II investigation recently.  Lawyers in Turkey suspect that the authority’s focus will remain on the overlap between competition law and employment law, particularly investigating companies for sharing information around wages.  The authorities in Bulgaria and Romania appear to have had more of a recent focus on abuse of dominance investigations, while the majority of the Greek authority’s investigations have been focused on alleged cartels.

It will be interesting to see what impact the various personnel and legislative changes have over the coming year and to keep a close eye on other countries in the SEE region to see if Chambers can expand its coverage of competition law in the region.